Category: Lindsey’s Novel

We are going to start breaking up our usual routine of posts with pieces from a book I just started writing. I don’t want to give anything away with a synopsis, so here it is. I hope you enjoy it.

Prologue

My sister’s thin frame lay motionless, sunken in a dirty mattress, the filth surrounding her blending with her soiled dress. I swallowed around the lump in my throat, my heart pounding in my chest. “Lorelei?” I lifted a shaky hand and pressed it gently on her shoulder, her skin cold as the frost outside. I tried not to think of the sharpness of her shoulder bone or the whiteness of her complexion or the way her clothes hung on her frame as though they didn’t belong. My heart sank as I glanced at her room, the floor seemed to move and I tried not to think of why that might be. I don’t even know how I managed to sneak in. But time was running out. Shaking her shoulder, I managed to loudly whisper, “Lorelei, wake up, I don’t have much time.”

A soft groan parted her chapped and peeling lips. Her brow crinkled into a frown as she squinted up at me, her red eyes widened and she opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

“What?” I asked, trying not to panic at the confused look on her pitiful face.

Her lips moved to the motion of a sentence, but still no sound.

Rage consumed me. She was worse off than I thought. I could not allow this to happen to her. “Get up, you’re coming with me. I’m getting you out of here.”

She remained motionless.

“Lorelei?”

She turned her head away from me.

“You’re coming with me, and you’ll thank me later.” I bent down to pull her up off the bed. A powerful wind punched me in the chest, knocking me clear across the room. I slid down the wall, landing with a painful thud. Bewildered, I stumbled to my feet, taking a step toward Lorelei. “Don’t you see what he’s done to you?” Adrenaline surged through me, I tried to control the quaking inside of me. “This isn’t you.” The same wind that threw me earlier, now circled around her bed, snatching up nearby debris. “Come with me!” I raised my voice over the howling of the wind. “You don’t know what’s best for you right now, let me take you away from here!” The walls around me creaked and moaned and bent inward as the ceiling expanded. I felt myself floating farther away from her. My time was up. “Lorelei! Please!”